THE DIVINE ORDER: Switzerland's tardy response to women's rights in Petra Volpe's hugely enjoyable adult coming-of-age movie

I had forgotten just how very late in the western-civilization game that the country of Switzerland finally recognized women's right to vote: 1971. That's a jaw-dropper. (You can find the year in which each of the world's countries recognized women's suffrage here.) Swiss filmmaker Petra Volpe has made a tasty little delight centered around that landmark Swiss year and what happened in one particular small town that helped change things. Unlike 2015's much darker Suffragette, THE DIVINE ORDER proves a lighthearted but also smart and genuinely "felt" film about this fraught time -- when the rest of the western world was experiencing everything from the sexual revolution to anti-war protests but Switzerland was still back in the dark ages concerning certain subjects.

As both writer and director, Ms Volpe (shown at right) trusts her subject to make its own importance clear, and she doesn't paint her little town as any hotbed of anti-woman feelings. It's simply patriarchal and old-fashioned -- with all that goes along with those conditions. Old habits die hard, as they say, and Switzerland proves not much different from other locales -- just later in coming to terms with change.

The group of women Volpe creates is given fine life by the set of actresses chosen for the roles, beginning with the film's wonderful star, Marie Leuenberger (of Amnesia and The Circle), who won the Tribeca Film Fest's Best Actress award for her work here.

Ms Leuenberger, above, plays Nora, a mousy little Swiss hausfrau with a decent, hunky husband (Maximilian Simonischek, below, right), a couple of cute kids, and a nasty, lazy father-in-law and brother-in-law in tow. When an interesting, random and quite believable confluence of events forces a crack in Nora's sense of identity and justice, that crack keep opening slowly into, well, a whole new world of change.

Helping that change occur are a number of local women, each with her own special problem to solve, but each also open to aiding the others in solving theirs. So this is a "solidarity" movie, yes, but it's one with a large, open heart and a mind sharp enough to recognize that the "other" -- men, and even some of the town's women who refuse to understand what suffrage and justice could bring -- are not the enemy per se but rather "family" that must be made to embrace progress.

How all this comes about proves alternately funny, moving and very specific -- bringing together several generations of women (and men) into a time of change in which most do not always behave in an admirable way, yet still manage to learn from their mistakes.

Featuring a plethora of juicy scenes, the movie's best of all is the one (below) in which the sexual revolution suddenly enters these women's lives as they learn for the first time about the look, as well as the uses, of their own vagina.

Sure, The Divine Order is a feel-good movie, but it offers enough irony, human foibles and satire (of religion and hypocrisy, among other subjects) to ensure that the feeling good is fully deserved. Performances are fine down the line, with Ms Leuenberger absolutely memorable as a country mouse who becomes a "tiger" without losing a trace of her humanity or generosity.

From Zeitgeist Films -- in German and a bit of Italian with English subtitles, and running a just-about-perfect 96 minutes -- the movie is Switzerland's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film "Oscar" race. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find it placed on the shortlist. The film opens tomorrow, Friday, October 27, in New York City (at Film Forum) and Santa Barbara (the Riviera) and on November 17 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7. Here in Boca Raton it will open at The Living Room Theater on December 1. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

Frédéric Mermoud's MOKA: A revenge -- not thriller -- drama starring Devos and Baye

TrustMovies thought that the name Frédéric Mermoud rang a bell. Sure enough, when he searched for it on his blog, up came a wonderful-but-little-seen French/Swiss film titled Complices (Accomplices) from 2009 (you can read my earlier review here). Complices focused -- unusually, for a police procedural -- more on the victim that on the crime itself, and in the process brought great humanity to the young man who had been murdered and eventually to those around him. M. Mermoud's new film, MOKA, is about the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident and focuses its energy on the bereft mother of the victim (also a young man).

The star of both films is that accomplished French actress Emmanuelle Devos (currently the subject of a mini-retrospective at NYC's FIAF), and she is joined by another French wonder-woman Nathalie Baye.

Granted this is only Mermoud's second full-length narrative work (the filmmaker is shown at right), but it seems to me that he is staking out a special claim in the crime film genre: that of exploring the victims and (to use the title of a deservedly popular HBO series) "leftovers" of a crime, which, in his capable hands, become as compelling a story (and a good deal deeper) that that of movies that concentrate mostly on solving the crime.

Though Moka has been described as a slow burning and/or riveting psychological thriller, it is much more a drama than a thriller. There may be a few thrills here, but they take a decidedly back seat to the psychology of the main character  -- the victim's mother, played by Ms Devos (above). And yet, thanks to Devos' keen understanding of how to unveil her character's extreme vulnerability and instability, the movie keeps us on quiet tenterhooks as it slowly unfurls.

Because the local police seem to be dragging their feet on this case, the victim's mom and dad have hired a private detective to investigate. When he turns up a mocha-colored car as the suspected vehicle, mom takes over the investigation herself, thinning down the suspects to one particular car and its owner, the character played by Ms Baye, shown above, who also owns a beauty salon.

The little dance in which these two women engage, and the results of it, are the meat of the movie, and M. Mermoud has organized things quite well, so that we view Devos' character in a varied and most interesting range of situations -- with the young man she meets on the ferry to the city where the suspected perpetrator lives; with her husband (the pair have become estranged, as often happens upon the death of a child); and even with the family of the Baye character.

The eventual solution does bring some closure -- and the idea of how refusing to take responsibility for one's actions results in seemingly endless tragedy -- but Mermoud saves his best for the last. Sure, the solving of the mystery is satisfying, of course, but the filmmaker then offers up a lovely and moving finale that shows us something that should -- and could -- have taken place much earlier, if only responsibility had been accepted in a timely fashion. Suddenly, finally, loss can be accepted and grief experienced.

Moka is a keeper and Mermoud a filmmaker to be greatly encouraged. I hope we shall not have to wait another eight years for his next one. (He did direct, meantime, a few episodes of that fine French TV series Les Revenants [The Returned] during its first season.)

From Film Movement and running a just-right 89 minutes, the movie has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, June 14, at New York City's Film Forum. On June 23, it will hit Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt), Chicago (at the Gene Siskel Film Center), Albuquerque (at the Guild Cinema) and here in South Florida at the Tower Theater in Miami. To view all currently scheduled playdates across the country, click here and scroll down.

In Belinda Sallin's creepy doc, DARK STAR, we're welcomed into the world of a most bizarre artist

Update: Dark Star will be available on VOD as 

of August 18 and via DVD on September 1.

Nothing moves fast -- not time, not the camera, nor the people that camera captures -- in DARK STAR, the new documentary film by Belinda Sallin -- her first, after making a doc series for German television. This slow pace has a kind of hypnotic effect that can alternately impress you or, if you're not careful, make you a tad sleepy. The result may depend on how much you already know and appreciate about the Swiss artist H.R. Giger. One thing I learned very quickly is that those H R initials stand, affectionately, for HansRuedi.

Ms Sallin, shown at left, was given wonderful access to Herr Giger, his household, his art and ideas, such as they are. Best known as the man who created the "alien" (of the Ridley Scott film and its far-too-many spin-offs, as well as the less famous but quite impressive "Sil" from Species, Giger (the German pronunciation of his name is evidently Geeger) was a guy for whom, as one person in the film succinctly points out, "birth, sex and death were very closely entwi-ned." These three land-marks/hallmarks were also, from what we see here, pretty much all that mattered to the artist.

Giger, shown above and below, during the time of the filming, is also seen at some length as a younger man and artist, during the days in which his career was taking off. We meet a couple of his earlier wives (one of whom he explains he had to marry in order for her to be perceived as something more than a mere "groupie") and spend time with the woman (and her mother) who cared for the artist through the end of his life.

Sallin fills her film with those helpers and caretakers, some of whom double as "shrinks" to our subject. Mostly a two-dimensional artist, Giger also completed a number of sculptures which have similar themes as his paintings. Quiet, slow-paced (often wheelchair-bound when he must travel) and soft-spoken, he had a very close relationship to his mother, in particular, while his father seems simply quiet and mysterious. "If I had shown my pictures to my parents," he admits at one point, "it would have scared them to death."

Though he is not asked about this, it would appears that Giger's influences might have included the likes of Dali, Picasso, Bruegel, Bosch, and maybe even de Chirico. We go with the fellow and his crew to a personal appearance in which he meets some of his many fans, applying his autograph to their books, prints and even their various body parts.

The filmmaker tracks Giger's career from the 1960s onwards, and we see him as a young man and artist, and while the fellow was perhaps always pretty strange, he has clearly become even more so with age. "He probes the dark areas where we don't consciously go," notes one of the interviewees along the way, and this is certainly true enough. But how he probes them seems to me a little facile, single-note and obvious. Perhaps there is more to life -- for some of us, at least -- than birth, sex and death.

The film ends with a dinner at Giger's home, with many of the folk we've seen during this doc in attendance, including the artist's fabulous cat. Mid-meal, the old man suddenly leaves the table and descends the stairs into.... This makes quite the appropriate finale, as Giger, we learn while the end credits roll, died very soon after filming was completed.

Dark Star, from Icarus Films and running 95 minutes, has its theatrical debut this Friday, May 15 at the Landmark's Sunshine Cinema in New York City, Nuart Theater in L.A., Opera Plaza Theater in San Francisco, the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and the Cable Car Cinema in Providence. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down to the appropriate film.  

Good Gaudí! Stefan Haupt's SAGRADA: Mystery of Creation offers up an unfinished masterpiece

As much as I love seeing the works of Spanish architect and artist Antoni Gaudí -- especially in movies such as Gaudí Afternoon and Unconscious -- I didn't know that much about the man and his life, not to mention practically anything about one of his unfinished works, The Sagrada Família in Barcelona, which has been under construc-tion since 1882 and remains today only maybe halfway completed. What a work it is -- and what an interesting docu-mentary filmmaker Stefan Haupt has made about it.

Herr Haupt (pictured at left) -- whose The Circle opened theatrically here in the USA only recently and has been submitted by Switzerland as its choice for Best Foreign Language Film -- is a Zurich-born filmmaker of talent and energy, both of which are on display in this movie about a rather amazing and enormous church that reaches to a height of nearly six hundred feet and also boasts multiple facades and multiple chapels within its apse. A late-career project for Gaudí, which the artist knew he was unlikely to complete, Sagrada Família was slowed down even further due to Gaudí's untimely death (by streetcar, of all things) and then even further by the Spanish Civil War. Even now, as this documentary explains, jockeying interests -- religious, cultural and (of course) business -- have delayed completion once again.

Still, SAGRADA: The Mystery of Creation takes the time and trouble to show and tell us the history of the architect, his country and his church, and in the process gives us a pretty good tour of the ever-growing facility. All this is brought to us by folk as different as modern day architects and sculptors, politicians, church men and even a famous musician/conductor/ composer (Jordi Savall, shown below).

One of the more interesting of these interviews and personalities is that of sculptor Etsuro Sotoo, below, who charms us initially as he explains why and how he is hitting the stone he is sculpting so very delicately: "I am asking the stone if I can hit it -- or not." Makes a certain sense, actually, as does the man's explanation of why he felt he must leave Buddhism for Catholicism, in order to place himself more in the shoes -- and spirit -- of Gaudí.

Not everyone is thrilled to see work continuing on the church, and certain questions arise: Should it be less religious? Should it look more -- or less --  like the building that Gaudí envisioned?  Ought it to be more "cultural" and less god-like? And through it all a waif-like dancer named Anna Huber appears to act as a kind of stand-in for the spirit of Gaudí himself, watching from various places and angles, as the building grows.

Government adds its two cents, as it tunnels under the very structure itself in order to build the upcoming hi-speed train that will run between Barcelo-na and Paris. But really now, did its route have to run exactly under this cathedral? Lots of questions occur during the course of the film but not so many answers. No matter. What's here should provide interest aplenty.

Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation, from First Run Features, opens this Friday, December 19 in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center -- after playing most of the rest of the country already. You can take a look at all playdates, past and future, by clicking here.

Narrative & documentary join as one in Stefan Haupt's entrancing history lesson, THE CIRCLE

Of late we're seeing more and more "re-creations" used in documentaries -- acted-out narrative moments, often entire scenes -- that goose the story along. Sometimes these are done well enough to almost pass by unnoticed (as in some of James Marsh's films such as Project Nim); at other times -- as in Holocaust-themed docs like Orchestra of Exiles or No Place on Earth -- these can seem more than a bit ham-handed and distracting. The new Swiss movie THE CIRCLE (Der Kreis) manages to bypass this problem entirely by embracing it completely: Stefan Haupt's new film is half documentary and half narrative, with the two beautifully woven together to make something that seems original and exactly correct for the subject it tackles.

That subject is the tale of two men living in Switzerland during and after WWII who become lovers, and the relatively small group of homosexuals of that time, dedicated to educating the general public, around and in which the two gravitate. As directed and co-written by Herr Haupt (shown at left), the film is helped enormously by the presence of the two men, still alive and kicking, who inspired the story: Ernst Ostertag and Robi Rapp  These two, lovers still, are shown as they are today (two photos below), while two attractive and talented actors -- Matthias Hungerbühler (at left, on the poster above and in the still below) and newcomer Sven Schelker (at right, above and below) -- play their younger selves in the narrative portion, which takes up more than half of this 102-minute movie.

These clear divisions, which turn out to meld quite richly and beautifully, actually give the movie more of a sense of "reality" than we sometime get from documentaries that pretend to be "truth" but then fudge things in various, sometimes less obvious, ways. The Circle is a hybrid doc that wears its manipulation proudly, and its great big heart on its sleeve.

The cultural state of Switzerland in the 1950s is articulately and genuinely rendered here -- it seems to me, at least, who was certainly not present at the time -- as not much better nor worse than most of the rest of the Western world at this time. Though homosexuality per se was not a crime in Switzerland, homosexuals themselves were pursued as though it was. And because the attitude of the general populace was negative, all this was accepted as perfectly fine.

The history of these two men, as well as the little group that they join -- The Circle of the title-- is captured in smart, lean strokes that tell us much while moving the plot along. Ernst, above, center, is a teacher who's up for "approval" and so must keep his sexuality hidden, while Robi, below, is a female impersonator (and a good one -- as is young performer Schelker), whom Ernst sees one special evening and is immediately smitten.

We meet the co-workers, friends and relatives of both men and learn how prejudice -- their own and others -- has affected them all. What a pleasure it is to see again German actress Marianne Sägebrecht (below, right, of Bagdad Cafe), here playing Robi's wonderfully caring mother.

The rest of the large cast, mostly unknown to me (we don't get that many Swiss films over here) are all on point and up to snuff. Their "unknown" quality, in fact, gives the movie just that much more of a documentary feel. The sub-plots -- Ernst's boss at his school is perhaps the most closeted gay of all, and this plays out in ways both expected and not -- are both germane and well-handled, avoiding the overly melodramatic at every step, while still maintaining our interest and good will.

The Circle -- Switzerland's probably very canny selection for Best Foreign Language FIlm in this years Oscar race -- is indeed a feel-good film, but it is also one that earns its status. Considering all that has happened to this pair over more than half a century, not to mention their deserved renown in Switzerland today, these men have every right to feel good -- grand, even -- and so will you, once you've seen their film. (The pairs, real folk, together with their actor counterparts, are shown below.)

The movie, via Wolfe Releasing, opens this Friday in New York City at the Quad Cinema; it will hit L.A. a month later on Friday, December 18, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3.

Michel Bouquet in full bloom: Stéphanie Chuat & Véronique Reymond's THE LITTLE BEDROOM

Americans (of a certain age, at least) know their French Michels pretty well: There's the late Michel Serrault (La Cage aux folles) and Michel Simon (Port of Shadows), Michel Piccoli (La belle noiseuse) and Michel Blanc (Monsieur Hire). But what about Michel Bouquet? Last seen on theses shores in the title role of Renoir, the actor, shown at left and below, will turn 89 this November. He's a splendid talent, and although Bouquet has been working in film since 1947, it was probably the quick succession of The Bride Wore Black (1968), Mississippi Mermaid ('69) and Borsalino ('70) that brought him attention here in the USA. He's still at it, dishing up a fine performance with each new movie, and though it has taken THE LITTLE BEDROOM (La petite chambre) four years to reach American screens, the wait was worth it, for this is one of the actor's finest roles.

The story here will hit home for most western cultures, due to the age and situation of its leading character, Edmond (played by Bouquet): Approaching his dotage and growing both physically and mentally frail, though thankfully with a dry and dark sense of humor, Edmond has been moved to the town where his son dwells and is supplied with a pretty nice apartment  in which to live. (Granted there are a lot of stairs to climb, but, hell, it's exercise!)

Our senior citizen is also supplied with a young nurse/home-care attendant named Rose (Florence Loret Caille, above, left) to provide the needed help -- which, of course, Edmond rejects out of hand. Rose herself could use some help, suffering as she is from grief and loss. Her husband, Marc, played by that fine actor, Éric Caravaca (below), does what he can, but no, it's is really up to Edmond and Rose to guide each other into repair.

Where The Little Bedroom is headed is never much in question, but the journey getting there is filled with events that seem genuine and real, alternately funny and quietly moving. The film-making duo of Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond (shown below, with Ms Chuat on the left) knows how to compact a small movie like this one with singular events that resonate and build to a thoughtful and moving conclusion.

Their film is full of little touches -- like the family at the finale who photographs Edmond --  that seem both special and real. The dialog is spot-on (both women wrote the film as well as directed it), letting what exposi-tion we need tumble easily from the conversations between characters.

Finding ourselves through helping others is certainly a time-tested means of growth and change -- as well as helping a movie about this very subject appeal more strongly to its audience. That's the case here, and by the end of The Little Bedroom -- another of those small films that bites off just what it can chew and digest -- I think you'll be very pleased that you viewed it.

The movie -- a Switzerland/Luxembourg co-production distributed in the USA by Cinema Libre Studios and running 87 minutes -- opens here in New York City tomorrow, Friday, September 26, exclusively at the Cinema Village. Los Angeles audiences will get to see it come October 3, when it opens at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7. And as with most of Cinema Libre's output, it will be available in other formats, as well. The Little Bedroom hits DVD, Amazon Instant Video and Vudu on December 9th.

Ursula Meier's SISTER: This updated 400 Blows is set, end of season, at a Swiss ski resort

With Home, and now her latest movie, SISTER, French filmmaker Ursula Meier has given us two very different but equally worthwhile films that deal with fractured families -- the first an odd but involving saga of location, the second a more standard yet affecting tale of class and need. In it a young-approaching-teenage brother and his adult sister fend for themselves, the latter doing odd jobs and usually getting fired, the former stealing possessions of wealthier families that frequent the nearby ski resort.

Ms Meier, shown at right, is a fine story-teller, wrapping us in the details of the lives of her charac-ters so well that we follow along gladly, even though the details are much stranger than usual (in Home) and sadder, as in Sister. That title itself takes on additional mean-ing as the movie progresses and we learn more about our siblings. The film-maker also has the ability to show us characters whose faults are many and great, yet so fully does she understand and elucidate these people that we come to feel for them all -- right down to the subsidiary folk in her films.

Though that superior young French actress Léa Seydoux (above right) plays the sister (and very well), the film belongs to the young boy, Simon, essayed by Kacey Mottet Klein (above, left and below, right) of Home and Gainsbourg), who is so consistently real and needy, while alternately strong and vulnerable, that he becomes as memorable, I believe, as was Antoine Doinel of Truffaut's landmark film.

How Simon interacts with his everyone -- from his sister to his "marks," from the kids and the adults to whom he sells his purloined goods, and especially his relationship with a kindly mother (Gillian Anderson, above, left) who takes a liking to the boy -- creates a marvelously multi-faceted character who, by film's end, does not easily let go of heart nor mind.

Meier draws fine performances from all her actors,  those mentioned above and Martin Compston (above, right) who plays a restaurant worker who tries to befriend our boy. Ms Meier understands wells how our motives are always mixed between our own needs and those of others, and she continually makes this clear throughout the film -- which leaves us, as well as her characters, duly chastened and somehow appreciative by film's end.

You can see this excellent movie, running 97 minutes, now on Netflix streaming, via Amazon Instant Video or on DVD.